


Decompress

by Lecavayay



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Crack Treated Seriously, Gen, Tampa Bay Lightning, UST if you squint, coping with stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-24
Updated: 2016-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-28 12:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6329941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lecavayay/pseuds/Lecavayay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has their way of dealing with the stress of a losing streak in the middle of a season. </p><p>Boyler's way is just a little more...nontraditional. </p><p>(Or, the one where Boyler gets little and everyone is out of their depth. Espeically Bish.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decompress

**Author's Note:**

> Do not take this seriously. I don't know anything about children. 
> 
> I started writing this back when the Lightning were struggling to score and everyone was injured. So that's around the time it takes place. 
> 
> It's pretty much 80/20 boltschick2612's fault. We negotiated the percentage. It's legit.

They’re losing.

Not like, a _lot_. But more than they expected. More often than is strictly accepted after going all the way to the Finals and retaining 99% of the roster that got you there.

They’re all feeling it, is what Ben’s trying to say. And the general inability to put pucks in the net makes his job a whole lot more stressful. A lot more _important_.

Whatever.

They’re losing and it blows and Ben’s just about had enough of bending over backwards only to be rewarded with one goal for and a loss. So what if he’s eating more chocolate than normal. So what. Everyone decompresses in a different way. His way is chocolate and they can all fuck right off.

As if their fingers aren’t covered in fake cheese and pizza grease.

He knows for a fact that Garry killed an order of twenty boneless wings a couple nights ago. They all had to hear about how awful the hot sauce was coming out the other end.

The locker room is gross.

Like, unsanitary gross and also figuratively gross and…

Oddly silent.

The guys are all halfway out of their gear, standing or sitting or frozen mid-walk. All staring at the same spot. Ben inches closer to his stall and finally sees what all the silent commotion is about.

A baby.

Well, maybe not a baby, but a very small human with a head full of dark hair and big, wide eyes that look vaguely familiar. Ben scans the room without moving his head, he’s holding his breath now just like everyone else. Vasy’s the closest to him and he leans over just an inch. “Whose kid is that?”

Vasy shrugs.

The tiny human giggles once and blows a spit bubble as he gets to his feet. He toddles toward the middle of the room, little feet flinging out to the side as he gains speed until he’s…oh shit.

Someone sucks in a sharp breath, Ben isn’t convinced it wasn’t him, as the kid plops down on the big, sacred logo on the floor and tries to stick his whole fist in his mouth.

“Guys?” Vladdy asks, breaking the vow of silence. “It’s not bad luck if it’s not a player, right?”

“But I think…” Tyler starts. “Um.”

“Oh shit.”

They all turn to face Cally who’s just come in from the trainer’s room, a big pack of ice taped to his shoulder.

“Who the fuck let him on the logo?!”

“What?”

“It’s, uhg.” He sighs and looks extremely put-upon. “That’s Boyler. Someone please get him off the logo before we never win a GAME AGAIN.”

“ _WHAT_?” Ben shouts, eyes probably wide enough to take up his whole face.

“Pick him up!”

“We _can’t_ unless we step on the logo!”

“Do it anyway!”

“Is no one going to talk about the fact that this infant is Boyler!”

“It doesn’t matter who it is, he’s sucking UP ALL OF OUR LUCK!”

“Mike, you do it. You haven’t played that many games yet,” Cally suggests, surprisingly calm.

Mike looks petrified.

“Just…just pick him up. It’s fine.”

Mike barely shakes his head, but it’s a definite no.

“Why is Boyler suddenly a child! Is no one going to explain this?”

“SOMEONE GET THE INFANT OFF THE LOGO.”

“Who the fuck is shouting in here?” Coach says, bursting into the room.

Three or four people point at the child in the middle of the floor who currently looks confused and mildly unhappy about it. Probably the yelling, Bish thinks.

“For Christ’s sake. It’s a baby. Half of you have kids of your own. What’s the problem?” Coach walks over and scoops him up, settling him against his hip. “Whose is it?”

Eyes swivel back to Cally, who seems to be the unspoken expert on all things Baby Boyler. “It’s Brian,” he confesses. “He does this when he’s stressed. Like, unmanageably stressed. It happened a few times in New York. It should only take a couple of days to wear off.”

“A couple da—we have a game tonight!”

Ben’s got all of his attention focused on Boyler, so he notices when the kid makes a face and his little nose scrunches up and he lets out an earsplitting cry.

“Hey, whoa,” Coach says, trying to gentle him. “It’s okay. It’s just us, yeah?”

Baby Boyler presses his tear-streaked face into his shoulder and continues crying, little feet kicking out in anger.

“Where’s Stralsy?” Cally asks. “He liked Stralsy in New York.”

Anton’s in nothing but a towel, skin still wet from the showers, but he raises his hand and steps toward them.

Coach is ever so happy to hand him right over.

“A-antron?” Baby Boyler snuffles.

“Yeah, it’s me. Why’d you get little on us, hmm?”

Boyler rubs his face into his neck and let’s himself be walked around the room, slowly settling down as Anton continues to talk to him under his breath.

“Okay great,” Coach says. “It looks like you’ve all got this under control then. Let me know when he levels up or whatever. For now we’ll call it an upper-body injury. And guys, this stays in the room, got it?”

They all mumble their agreement until the locker room door shuts.

“Okay, we’re talking about this _right now,_ ” Stammer says, eyes wide. “Six-foot-seven dudes don’t just become babies.”

“We’re not talking about anything unless you lower your voice,” Anton says, still bouncing the little boy as he walks.

“Let me put it to you this way,” Cally offers, voice calm and even. “You watch the Bachelo–.”

Stammer’s eyes go even wider.

“Shut up, everyone knows. You watch the Bachelor when you’re stressed. Boyler gets little. That’s just…what he does. To decompress.”

“But I can still play hockey when I’m stressed!” Stammer hisses.

“He’s going to be fine,” Ben chimes in. “I mean…he’s going to be fine, right?”

“He’ll be fine,” Cally confirms. “But he’s going to need somewhere to stay.”

“Stralsy’s got it under control,” Kuch says, pointing out the fact that Boyler’s now asleep tucked into the curve of Anton’s neck. “Let him do it.”

“No. No way. I’ve got four kids of my own. I don’t need a fifth.”

“Oh c’mon! What’s one more?”

“No,” he says, firm.

The room shifts back to Cally.

“Absolutely not. I’m not making my wife do that,” he says.

“Dude, you and Stralsy are the only two people qualified to watch him. One of you has to do it,” Tyler says.

“It’s a kid. You’re all qualified. Someone step up and take him.”

“We’re all playing tonight!” someone shouts, borderline too loud.

“You aren’t,” Cally points at Tyler.

“Neither is Ceddy,” he offers up.

“Give him to Pally,” Ceddy says.

“Pally’s not even here!”

“What about Jo? They’re about the same age, eh?”

“Shut up. No way,” Jo snaps. “Who did he stay with in New York?”

“Usually Hank and Therese,” Anton says. “One time his brother was in town.”

“Okay, so goalies! Give him to Vasy!”

“We can’t give a baby to a _baby_.”

“You wanted to give him to Jo!”

“I’ll take him.”

The room stutters to silence and Ben flushes with the attention fixed on him.

“But you’re playing tonight,” Stammer says. “You can’t watch him from the net.”

“Yeah but…he can stay up in the press box during the game. It’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” Cally asks.

Ben nods firmly. “How hard can it be? It’s just Boyler in kid form, right?”

Anton smiles and there’s something in his eye Ben can’t read. “Right.”

“So I’ll just, uh, just take him for pregame and bring him back.”

Anton passes the sleepy Boyler into Ben’s arms and he suddenly has the realization he’s never held a kid like this before. It’s way too late for that now.

“Aw, he looks so little next to someone so big,” Tyler says. “Never thought I’d say that about Boyler.”

“Yeah, he…he does, doesn’t he?” Ben doesn’t know why he’s suddenly feeling so overwhelmed. It’s not like this is an actual baby in his arms. It’s his teammate. His very stressed out, 6’7’’ teammate.

“Kinda cute.”

And that’s true too, now that he’s sleeping and not screaming.

 

He leaves his gear at the arena and heads to his car, Boyler tucked quietly against his chest, before he realizes that he can’t just put him in the backseat all willy-nilly. “Shit.”

Anton finds him standing there, staring at his backseat. “You can borrow mine,” he says.

“Huh?”

“My car seat.”

“Oh! Yeah, thanks.”

So Anton gets the seat secured and Ben straps Boyler in. The kid snuffles a bit but stays passed out. “Guess I’m not really ready for this.”

“You’ll be fine. It’s just Boyler.”

“Hey, uh…does he remember anything? Once he’s back to normal?”

“Not usually. Though there was this one time when he had a terrible stomach ache the next day and he kept texting his brother about all the ice cream he let him eat. He’s never mentioned anything else.”

He must see the uneasiness written all over Ben’s face because he continues. “With any luck, he’ll be back when you wake up tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I hope so.”

 

Boyler’s still asleep when they get home and Ben manages to pick him up and get him inside without waking him. He lays him gently on the couch and drains a bottle of water from the fridge. He wonders if actual-Boyler is this tired or if the normal exhaustion of hockey wears on his little body more.

He doesn’t have a crib or like, a box, to put him in while he sleeps so Ben changes into some sweats and curves himself around Boyler on the couch and hopes he doesn’t accidentally roll over and suffocate him while he naps.

That’d be a great headline.

 

His phone chimes an hour and a half later and he lets himself wake up slowly, stretching out his legs until his toes point. He doesn’t realize something’s missing until he hears a little giggle.

He bolts upright.

“Oh god, what are you doing?” he shouts when he realizes Boyler is on the floor playing with the batteries from the TV remote.

“Play!”

“No no no no no no no,” he repeats, wrenching the little death tubes from his hands. “Not for play.”

“B-b-but…”

“Dangerous. Not good. No.”

Boyler makes little grabby hands at the batteries as Ben puts them back in the remote.

“Okay let’s find something for you to eat that won’t kill you,” he says, hoisting Boyler up off the floor and settling him on his hip.

The fridge is full of good, healthy things like lettuce and chicken and baby carrots. Ben sticks his finger in Boyler’s mouth and is disheartened to feel very few teeth. Carrots probably aren’t going to work.

“So,” he says, setting Boyler on the counter. “You stay there while I start my pasta and then I’ll find something soft for you.”

His little feet kick at the cabinets below as he watches Ben set out a pot of water to boil and pull down the box of spaghetti noodles. Ben goes back to the fridge to get the open jar of tomato sauce, a precooked chicken breast, and the bag of parmesan cheese but in the thirty seconds he’s not watching Boyler out of the corner of his eye, he hears something spill.

The little jar of toothpicks that was sitting out _for no good reason_ is now all over the floor and Boyler looks extremely pleased with himself. He briefly thinks about setting him on the top of the refrigerator and never letting him down.

Before he gets all the tiny toothpicks off the floor, the pot of boiling water hisses and spits a few drops out onto the hot stove.

“Nuggets?”

“What?” Ben asks, throwing way too much pasta in the water.

“Nuggets!”

“Is that what you eat for pre-game meal?”

“Mhmm! Chik’n nuggets,” Boyler insists.

“I don’t have any nuggets, buddy. What about…uh…” He looks through his cabinets. “Peas? Peas are soft.” He pops the top and quickly drains the little green vegetables. “Wanna give ‘em a try?”

Little Boyler takes one single pea from the top of the strainer and sticks it in his mouth. His face tells Ben all he needs to know. The peas are a no-go.

“Okay, wait. Before you get mad. Cheerios? I’ve got the Honey Nut kind.” He pulls the box down and puts a few in his palm.

Boyler greedily takes the cereal and pops it in his mouth so Ben leaves a little pile of it on the counter and gets back to his own meal – chicken in the microwave and noodles in the strainer and pasta sauce in a pot to warm.

A single Cheerio lands in the sauce.

"Boyler…”

The kid is grinning ear to ear.

“You’re a little asshole. Just like your adult-self.”

“Bad word!” he yells, pointing to Ben’s mouth.

“No it’s not.”

“Bad word!”

“You say it all the time when you’re older.”

Boyler laughs and shoves a few more Cheerios in his mouth as Ben plates up his massive pre-game meal.

“C'mere you,” he says, grabbing him with one arm and setting him on the ground. “I’ll bring your cereal, come on.”

Boyler, thankfully, follows him to the table and climbs up onto the chair next to Ben, reaching out for the big box.

“If you dump this everywhere, you’re gonna clean it up,” he warns.

“’kay,” he says, sticking his little arm all the way in the box.

“You ready for the game tonight?”

"Go Bolts!” he cheers, leaving the 'l' out.

“That’s right, bud.” He’s kind of relieved that Boyler seems to know what’s going on, that maybe he’s still got a little bit of his adult brain. “You gonna watch from the press box?”

“Gonna play!” He swings his arms around like he’s hitting a puck with a stick and knocks over the Cheerios box. “GOAL!”

“Man, I wish you could. We need you out there. You picked a really shi…crappy time to do this.”

Boyler flops down on the chair. “Sorry,” he says, his r’s sounding a little more like w’s.

“Hey! No, don’t be sad. Just…you know, decompress and come back sooner rather than later.”

Boyler doesn’t respond and Ben finishes his pasta.

 

The ride back to the arena is uneventful, Boyler strapped into his borrowed car seat watching things through the window. Ben can feel the usual nerves that settle just before a game fluttering around in his stomach. He reaches for the glovebox and pulls out his stash of stress-chocolate, drawing a mini Mr. Goodbar from the bag. 

“Me?” Boyler asks.

Ben looks at him in the rearview mirror. He’s smiling, showing off what teeth he has. “You want one of these?”

“Yeah!”

“I don’t know,” he says, pretending to think it over. “Chocolate is for good kids. Are you gonna be good during the game?”

Boyler nods with vigor.

“You promise?”

“Mhmmmm.”

At the last stoplight before he turns into the arena lot, Ben finds one of the plain ones and passes it back. By the time he’s parked, Boyler has melted chocolate all over his fingers and lips.

“Honestly, I should’ve seen that coming,” he says, getting Boyler out of the car. “Uh, you want me to carry you or walk?”

“Walk!” he replies, licking at his fingers on one hand and holding up the other.

Ben takes hold and is struck with just how small Boyler really is. He barely comes to the top of his knee, his hand absolutely dwarfed by Ben’s. _This is so fucking weird._ “Okay, let’s go.”

They head for the player’s entrance but not before Boyler insists on jumping in a puddle still left over from yesterday’s rain.

 

“You’re still alive!” Cally shouts when they get to the locker room.

“He’s a baby not a serial killer,” Ben says, still holding onto Boyler’s hand.

Cally just smiles and pats the kid on the head.

“Is that chocolate?” Anton asks, eyes wide.

“…yes?” Ben says.

“How many has he had?”

“Uh, just the one. And it was fun-sized?”

Boyler seems to be rolling what’s left of his chocolate bar around in his mouth, sucking his lips to clean them off.

“And just where did you find a fun-sized piece of chocolate laying around?” Cally asks, crouching down to smile at the kid.

“Fuck off,” Ben snaps, tugging Boyler over to his stall.

“Bad word,” he announces.

“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” He lifts Boyler up so he can sit on the bench and swing his legs.

“Aw, he’s already got you wrapped around his little finger.”

“No more chocolate, though,” Anton insists. “Or ice cream or cake or sugar of any kind. You’ll thank me.”

Ben makes note to move his home stash to a higher cabinet and begins the process of stretching out and getting dressed.

 

He’s folded in half, eyes closed, sinking into the feeling of his muscles loosening when he hears the thunder of little feet followed by a crescendo of giggle-screams. He snaps his eyes open just in time to see Boyler run hands-first into Val’s crisp white shirt.

Hands that are currently covered in chocolate.

“Oh no.”

Val, to be fair, looks quite a bit calmer than Ben would have expected in this situation. He’s not one of the best dressed in the locker room for no reason; that shirt probably isn’t from the sale rack.

“I’m sorry,” he says, unfolding himself and getting to his feet quickly. “He just…I don’t know where he got more, I’ll go wash his hands.”

Val takes a few determined breaths. “It’s just a shirt.”

“Looks like a kind of nice shirt though.”

“I’ll have him pay the dry cleaning bill.”

Boyler’s smiling around the two fingers he's put in his mouth.

“Where did you get more chocolate?” Ben asks him, trying to be stern.

The kid giggles and points to Ben’s stall. Where his top secret locker room stash is laid out on the bench. In fact, Boyler even separated it by color. He’s apparently a fan of Krackle bars.

“Shit.”

“Bad word!”

Val is definitely laughing at him.

 

Cally’s wife is kind enough to babysit Boyler in the press box while they get to work. The game isn’t easy and all of his limbs ache when he gets back to the locker room after the overtime win. All he wants is a hot shower and a long, uninterrupted lay in his b–.

“Take him. Take him right now.”

Ben barely has the mental capacity to hold onto Boyler when he’s dropped in his lap.

“Bishie! Bolts win!” he shouts, wiggling around.

And Ben wishes his chest doesn’t go a little warm, but it totally does. “Yeah buddy, we did.”

“He’s not an actual kid,” Cally reminds him. “Don’t get too attached.”

Ben is not attached. He knows it’s just Boyler. He knows. But he’s also not sure how everyone isn’t charmed by his chubby little cheeks and wide smile and that look in his eyes that makes you feel like you’re the only person in his world…

Shit. “I know. I’m just being nice.”

“Well be extra nice and get him to turn back tonight,” Cally says, taking off his helmet.

“We can have ice cream?” Boyler asks, standing up on Ben’s knees and hanging on to his shoulders.

Ben sees Anton shaking his head across the room.

“How about we head home and have some Cheerios.”

“Ice cream! Ice cream!” he chants, bouncing a little.

“But I heard you got sick the last time you had ice cream,” he says, trying to reason with the toddler.

“I want it.”

“I know you do. But it’s almost bed time. We can have some Cheerios and then go to bed, yeah?”

Boyler’s little nose scrunches up and Ben can see the tantrum brewing.

“Uh, okay maybe if you sit here and be good while I change, we can go get some ice cream. Does that sound good?”

Boyler nods.

“Okay, but you’ve gotta be good the whole time.”

He climbs down onto the bench and sits, staring up at Ben with wide eyes as he starts to strip out of his pads.

“Pushover,” Cally whispers as he heads to the showers.

 

They drive through Dairy Queen and Ben gets Boyler the smallest vanilla cone they have and tucks a napkin into his toddler-sized jersey in hopes of preventing mass clothing casualty from this.

“Thank you, Bishie,” he says once they pull away, the ‘h’ sound getting lost a little bit in both words.

“You’re welcome, bud.” And fuck it, at the next red light he treats himself to one of his plain chocolate bars in the glove compartment. It was a hard game. He deserves it.

“Me?”

“You’ve got ice cream.” And he sure does, the sugary white stuff is smeared all around his lips.

“But I want that.”

“You can’t have both, it’s almost bedtime.”

“Nooooo!” the kid shouts, flinging his little arms around. “Gonna stay up with you!”

Ben pushes past the part of himself that thinks that’s endearing. This is not a kid. This is Boyler. “It’s bedtime for me too.”

“Booooo.”

And Ben wonders where he picked up _that_ from.

 

They get to Ben’s place and Boyler hands him his mostly empty, melted ice cream cone as he struggles to get the buckle of the car seat undone. At a loss for what to do, he pops the slightly soggy thing between his teeth and lifts Boyler up and out, steering him toward the front door.

This is how new parents become gross. They don’t even think about things before they do them.

He takes the cone out of his mouth and frowns at it.

Boyler toddles as fast as his little legs will take him once they’re inside, beelining for the couch where they napped before the game. Ben detours for the kitchen to grab a water bottle and hears a loud thump from the other room.

“Shit, _shit_ , Boyler are you okay?”

But the kid is fine, bouncing on the middle cushion with his little hands gripped on the back of the couch. He’d pulled a book off the table on his way up, it seems. Ben sets it back in its place.

“Maybe we shouldn’t jump on the couch, okay?”

“But it’s fun!”

“But you could get hurt.” He grabs Boyler around the waist and sets him on the ground. “Couches are for sitting.”

But Boyler’s not listening, he’s tearing off down the hallway that leads to Ben’s bedroom.

“Fuck,” he sighs louder than he should. He really just wants to lay down and fall asleep to Jimmy Fallon.

“Bad word!” Boyler shouts, sticking his head out of the doorway before quickly disappearing again and causing another loud noise to filter down the hall.

Ben’s there in five long steps and he sees nothing but a picture frame on the floor. “Boyler?”

Silence.

“Brian? Are you in here?” he asks, opening the closet and shoving his clothes aside. “Brian! This isn’t funny!”

He drops to his knees and folds to look under the bed – nothing.

“Boo!”

Ben hits his head on the bed frame and scrambles to get to his feet in order to follow the giggles toward the living room. He catches the back of Boyler slipping out of view as he rounds the corner but then the kid is gone.

He can’t do this. Oh god, he’s so out of his depth. “Boyler!”

Giggles. All he gets back is giggles and a slamming door.

“Damn it.” He digs his phone out of his pocket and tries to dial Cally’s number as he wiggles the doorknob of the bathroom Boyler’s shut himself in. “Boyler, open this door.” The kid barely comes up to his knee, how did he even lock the door?

The line rings out, going to voicemail. “Cally? It’s Ben. I need help. Please, please come help me,” he begs before shoving his shoulder into the door. As if that was going to do anything.

He wants to pull his hair out.

 

Fifteen long minutes later, with Ben sitting by the bathroom door listening to Boyler open and close the cabinet and praying he doesn’t get the cap on the rubbing alcohol open and drink it all, the doorbell rings.

“Oh thank god.”

He rushes to let Cally in but that’s…that’s Val. With his hair tediously tousled and at least three buttons undone on his shirt. A different one with no chocolate on it. “Oh.”

“You called me. What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I didn’t call you.”

“You thought you called Cally, but you called me. I’ve got…plans. So what do you need?”

“Uh.” Ben can’t really wrap his head around the state of dress Val’s in and _plans_.

Boyler helps with that by throwing something on the floor and possibly turning on the shower.

“Where’s the kid?” Val asks.

“In the bathroom.”

“Alone?”

“More or less.”

“You know he could drown, yes?”

Ben feels his heart sink. He didn’t even think of that. “Shit!”

They both rush to the bathroom door, fists raised to bang loudly.

“Boyler! Let me in right this minute!” Ben commands.

“No!” his little voice comes from the other side of the door.

“He’s alive. Okay.”

Val reaches up to start feeling around the top of the doorframe, his shirt lifting up just enough to expose the band of his underwear.

“What are you doing?”

“There’s usually a key,” he says, pulling down a little peg-looking silver thing. “Opens doors from the outside.”

“I love you.” He takes the key and wiggles it around in the door until it pops open.

Boyler’s sitting in the tub with just enough water to cover his legs, splashing his little hands. Ben rushes to him, lifting him into his arms in one swoop. “Oh, you scared me.”

“What is that smell?”

Ben breathes against the top of Boyler’s hair and that’s…“My nice cologne,” he mumbles.

Val picks up the empty glass bottle and clicks the cap back on. “This is not nice.”

“I didn’t ask you.”

“Bubble bath!” Boyler says, reaching for it.

“A hundred dollar bubble bath, yes,” Ben says, carrying him toward the washer and dryer. “Let’s dry your pants, okay? So they’re not all wet?”

“You’re very attentive, you know,” Val says, following him.

Ben doesn’t reply as he tugs at the wet fabric clinging to Boyler’s legs. The kid watches intently as Ben starts the dryer and the little pair of pants begins to circle.

“I thought you had a date.”

“I didn’t say it was a date,” Val says.

“It looks like a date,” Ben replies, indicating Val’s entire ensemble.

“It’s not like that.”

“Okay. Well, um, I think I can handle it from here. So, uh, you can go. To your not-date.”

“Are you sure?”

Ben looks down at Boyler where he’s still crouched, watching the dryer toss around his pants. “Yeah. I think the sugar’s mostly out of his system. We should just go to bed.”

“It’s not a date.”

“Okay,” he says with a bit of a snap. “I believe you.” He doesn’t.

“It’s my chocolate.”

“Your…chocolate?”

“Stammer watches bad reality TV and Boyler gets little and you eat chocolate.”

“Oh.” He’s pretty sure his face is red because Val just heavily implied he’s going to go get laid to de-stress. That’s a lot to take in at midnight. _After_ midnight. Wow, he really needs to go to sleep.

“So it’s not a date,” Val reiterates.

“Nope. It is not. But I’ve got him,” he says, indicating Boyler, who is now curled up like a cat in front of his dryer. “Thank you. For coming over and finding the magic key.”

“It wasn’t a problem.”

They stand around in Ben’s small laundry room for another few breaths before it starts to feel awkward.

“I should put him to bed,” he says, crouching down to pick Boyler up as gently as possible. The kid is as useless as a bag of potatoes.

“Be good to him,” Val says. “We need him back.”

Ben tucks Boyler’s little face into the crook of his neck. “I know we do.”

“I’ll see you for the video session tomorrow, yes?”

“Yeah. Have a…good night.” He hates that he hesitates even a micro of a second. Sex as stress relief is normal. Totally normal. Val is being normal.

“Sleep well.”

And Ben does, after tucking the covers up around Boyler's shoulders and building a pillow barricade along the outer edge of the bed. Just in case.

 

In the morning, he rolls over into a very tall and sturdy adult, taking up more than half his bed and still smelling like his expensive cologne. Boyler's hair is curled wildly across the pillow and his thumb is tucked under his chin, like it slipped out of his mouth while he was sleeping.

Thank god. “Hey. Welcome back, man.”

“Mmmm,” Boyler groans, rolling onto his back and rubbing at his eyes. “You and Val need to work out your shit.”

So much for not remembering anything. “I should’ve let you drown.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr, if that's your kind of thing :)


End file.
